


The Garden Club

by Nate_kun



Series: The [x] Club [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Drama, Existential Crisis, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 17:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nate_kun/pseuds/Nate_kun
Summary: Because evidently a book club wasn't enough.





	1. Begun the Gardening Has

**Author's Note:**

> A republication from Fanfiction.net. This perpetually-in-limbo series analyzes the limbo in which the cast of Fates finds themselves mired deep within under the guise of a simple inconsequential gardening club.
> 
> Word Count: 1104 words.

It starts on a whim, by complete accident, no one could have seen it coming.

And in hindsight, the committee wishes that they had,  _so they could steer the king clear of it._

A visit to a Hoshidan village in the middle of bumfuck scenic nowhere is what triggers it. It has no name and the resident commoners agree that it's for the best, because even if it did, no one would bother to learn it.

The novelty proves itself in the long run, as local tourism is considerably up by a factor of  _ **four**_ in contrast to similar, generically-themed rustic communities.

Beyond that, it has nothing of interest. Everything sucks. Jakob in particular wants it branded as their slogan, but speaks nothing of it when the peasants are in range, a contrived smile plastered on his sweating face as the shoeless village kids scamper by.

Their business is as small and inconsequential as the settlement itself. With Anankos sealed and an ephemeral kingdom in need of more-than-a-few reparations, the newly-crowned king sets forth on a pacifist's conquest to seek aid from outside communities willing to offer their resources for a noble cause, and the path to that goal is paved in dull politics and fortnightly visits for the sake of relationship-building.

Unfortunately, the usual suspects for such a voluntary endeavor are engrossed with ill-timed issues of their own.

Hoshido is in the middle of a mortifying puppet uprising brought on by magic scrolls gone awry and a tinkering tactician with more time than he knows what to do with.

Izumo is more than happy to relinquish all the excess supplies in their stock, but even so, a kingdom can only progress so far on mere hot towels and bath salts alone.

Nohr has nothing. _It never does. Next._

Kohga doesn't even exist anymore.  _Mokushu sends its regards._

And yet, their troubles only truly unravel when a certain serf—one as nameless and forgettable as the rest but with the flair and thirst of a cougar—approaches the king with a smile as bright as the sweltering sun.

A paragon of friendliness (and not to mention, stranger to subtlety), the king readily accepts her sultry invitation with a smile to match. Azura and Felicia both follow with little more to add than sharing his inability to deny themselves the pleasure of good company.

' _This woman is old._ '

Jakob begrudgingly trods behind them, scoffing all the while. He takes extra care to make each scathing stomp count, so that the peasant soil knows of its unworthiness to lie under him.

' _Too old..._ '

He has half a mind to lash out at the smelly, foul, dirt-caked kids that belittle him and his apparently  _less-than-masculine_  ponytail, with only the illusive image of a humble king's humble butler holding back the urge.

' _She's like a living fossil._ '

' _Or a cake past its expiration date.._ '

Wary of the rotting-from-the-inside-pastry's intentions, Jakob narrows his eyes, shooting daggers at her from a sharp—safe distance.

' _Why is she looking at him so intently?_ '

' _Her eyes.._ '

' _You're treading on thin ice, milady.._ '

Every so often, he sees it, that tired bag brushing a sly arm up against the king (who remains ever oblivious  _bless his stupid heart)._

Jakob shivers, he shivers hard, and his expression sours beyond reason.

' _Get away get away get away get away **get away**_ _ **get away**_.'

Azura and Felicia are as blind as their leader, they see nothing, leaving Jakob the disgusted sole prisoner to a wretched performance far past its prime (if it was ever there to begin with). He quickens his pace, catching up to them with but a single thought on his mind.

' _Take out the trash..._ '

And take out the trash he does—or at least, he would have, had the party not stop just short of him reeling his dense lord into the safety of his buttling arms.

Their destination is but a dirt patch that is no less scenic bumfucking than any other part of the village.

It's here that cruel fate deals its hand. The Devil in the details introduces herself as the recently-widowed (no surprise there, Jakob reckons)  _ **Something-Something Last-Name**_. Though the others pay their condolences with the utmost respect, Jakob merely stands aside with a skeptical grimace. He pays as much attention to her as she does to him—which is to say, he only catches scattered intervals of the cougar's sob story.

Apparently her beloved of days long past was an ogre—the real meaty kind—masked, faceless _,_  and chained by what could only be described as 'emotional baggage' ( _Felicia undeniably cringes at this revelation, but maintains a smile nonetheless_ ).

The cougar reminisces of their romance and does so for quite a while, a passionate love met with scorn by her neighbors and kinkshaming by her parents, but she cared not for their approval.

Jakob yawns because none of this is particularly important or has any relevance to anything. Long story short the fell beast was savagely slain by the nameless peasants some moons ago—an act justified by a newly-enacted edict outlawing marriage to bloodthirsty reanimated humanoids—and sacrificed to the First Dragons in exchange for one thing—a bountiful season's harvest.

And for better or worse, it actually worked.

Azura is abruptly handed an abnormally large daikon radish, to which she appropriately responds with a heavenly-pronounced. "What."

Be it by sheer coincidence or some brand of foul, accursed, cougar-detesting sorcery, the village is swamped from head to toe in radishes, and the withering hag insists that the king accept some of the plentiful produce as a token of their bond.  _Emphasis on bond._

To further sweeten the deal, she throws in an unassuming packet of seeds so that Valla too may gain a headstart sowing its fields with phallic vegetables—and though she sincerely claims with a thin layer of fervent subterfuge that the gift is from the bottom of her heart, it's more than likely that she just wanted to use the subsequent opportunity to spout shameless innuendo.

 _"Plant it in the ground,"_ she huskily whispers, rubbing her hands up the king's sides.  _"Or plant it inside me.._ "

Evidently Corrin doesn't think much of her sad proposal— _if at all_ —because the next thing he does is unconsciously shove the harlot away out of excitement. Primal feelings brewing within him, he takes one overjoyed glance at the daikon seeds before promptly announcing an edict of his very own.

"Oh gods... O-Oh... Oh gods.. Guys, do you know what this means?"

" _ **We finally have a use for the greenhouse!**_ "

And the king's happiness knew no bounds.


	2. Ephemeral Gardening and You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king is changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 1171 words.

It isn't particularly noticeable at first, the way the king acts, the subtleties in his gawky movements, the stumbling stammers and staggering stutters that seem to compose a good deal of his overly-jovial jargon. At a glance, nothing is wrong and everything is as it should be—a neutral man's kingdom on a foamy road to nowhere, shepherded by a sheltered king who is no less lost than the galloping galoots foolish enough to follow him.

Jakob is—regrettably—one of those galoots. A galoot that is scathing, seething, with the sort of volatile mood swings that could ruffle the feathers of even the most stuck-up of golddigging harlots ( _and likely give them a run for their coveted money too_ ).

He is—for ever and a day—the handsomely irrational right-hand servant of the king of Valla, difficult to please and ever-easy to peeve.

Conversely, he is not actually the lead of this tragic travesty ( _that would be the lord, duh_ ), but his supercilious perspective certainly gives more than enough material to set the scene for it.

A scene in which everything is wrong and nothing is as it should be.

In the days following their awkward excursion to the peasant-polluted pigsty that hath no name, Jakob's insightful intuition begins to take notice to a series of gradual changes in the endearing disposition of their humble king.

It starts as mere curiosity, spun on by the unassuming packet of seeds graciously offered to him by that sleazy, sour, saggy, succubi seductress ( _the one that—as the butler recalls—lived like a cougar, but smelled like a fish—a rotten one at that_ ).

Unable to turn a blind eye to even the most lubricious levels of generosity, the king doesn't hesitate to give them a second look. One thing leads to another (J _akob recalls talk of goalposts and alternative routes to reaching them_ ) and before long, an ignominious spark ignites unlike any other.

What was once a hunch becomes interest, and what was once interest becomes recreation.

When the king wakes the next morning, he puts on a pair of gloves (never mind the pair he already wears) and well,  _vanishes._

He becomes engrossed, enchanted by what he comes to call a call of cultivation, and Jakob is left to play a wary witness to his newly-born agricultural endeavors.

_'None of this is going to end well.'_

Recreation breeds passion, and no amount of passion is too much for the king's lofty designs. Hours become days and days become weeks, and eventually the thin lines between the three slowly blur into each other as part of one long whirring, continuous cycle of perpetual gardening the likes of which no nameless farm town has ever before seen.

It's a self-contained binge in which the king, driven by aforementioned passion and bright-eyed optimism, isolates himself in the darkened depths of his personal quarters for a most-concerning amount of time in order to absorb the ins and outs of horticulture. The do's, the don'ts, the basics and the like.

All the while Jakob stands dutifully outside his treehouse, guarding his liege and close companion from petty, miscreant threats both real and imaginary.

" _ **What the hell did I tell you about posture?!**_ "

He also savagely yells at Felicia from afar when necessary ( _what a klutz_ ).

Many moons go by but still the king does not once descend from his private perch. Guests—not that Valla gets many—are barred from stepping in, and though Jakob is initially willing to refrain from asking any questions, his unrivaled servitude ultimately gets the better of him.

 _'What if he's not eating?_ '

' _What if he's not bathing?_ '

' _What if he's not.. excreting?_ '

These bottled worries for the only man he's ever unconditionally given two fucks for drives home an ultimatum that sends him over the edge of his composure.

Jakob straightens himself, comes to his senses, and with withering compliance, scales the ladder to confront his king. It's a long ascent, his hands are shaky, his feet are killing him, and Felicia's ear-shattering shrieks from down below all but confirm he'll have more on his agenda when he climbs back down.

Once at the top, the butler takes a deep breath, clears his throat, and readies his fist to gently knock on the front door.

' _Ahem. One.. two.. thr_ —'

However, there's no need because Corrin quite literally exits before his fist can even scrape the door's surface. Rather, it hits—

"Gah! Milord! My sincerest apologies!" he gasps, retracting his fist from Corrin's nose. "Y-You're up!...  _and er, alive!_ "

"Oh, hello Jakob! Haha, of course I'm alive! And how are you?"

Indeed, one could make the argument that the king is in one piece, but not necessarily  _at peace_. As Jakob studies his lord further, he catches wind of a few glaring inconsistencies—burdens plaguing his well-being.

"I'm er, I'm fine, thank you milord, but I'm more concerned about you. You've been up here for days on end doing gods knows what, denying visitors, missing council meetings, stressing the last of my nerves! Is everything alright? Are you even well enough to be  _outside_  right now?"

Underneath that trademark dork laughter are signs of an absolutely sleep-deprived sovereign, struggling to stay conscious with half-lidded eyes, tangled hair, dirt-caked clothes, and a faint  _earthy_  scent clinging to his person. If he's eaten, drank, or relieved himself within the past hour ( _let alone at all_ ), he doesn't show it.

" _Am I well?_  I'm dandy!" he chimes. "Never better!... I'm not sure why you had to wait this late to ask that, though."

But the worst of it, the most alarming thing, the reddest red flag, goes unnoticed until the very last moment.

"And the plates,  _gods the plates_ , Felicia's broken so damn many in your absence and— _wha..?_  Milord.. we're minutes from sunrise,  _it's morning—!_ "

"And what a wonderful morning it is!" the king exclaims. "So wonderful that I'd like for all of us to spend the rest of the day wrapped in its warmth!"

Jakob sputters from how innocuously easy that was given the build-up. "Wh-What?! You mean it?"

"Of course! As a matter of fact, as long as you're here, do you mind rounding up everyone? Bring them to the courtyard, tell them that since it's so nice out, we'll be having today's council  _outside!_ "

"Huh.. Well, if that's what you'd like milord, then I'll make it so."

"Great, I can always count on you! Now, if you excuse me, I've actually got some errands of my own to attend to."

To Jakob's utter fright, the disheveled king promptly rushes out his humble treetop abode to the ledge,  _ **and jumps**_.

"M-Milord!? Wait, stop! Don't—!"

" _Who needs ladders when you're this dandy?!_ " he declares as he hits the ground, unharmed. "Let's regroup in an hour!  _ **Hup two three four!**_ "

And that's when Jakob sees it. The reddest of red flags.

That's when he sees his lord, liege, and paycheck-provider wearing boots.  _Work boots._

It's safe to assume that passion leads to obsession.


	3. Technical Difficulties, Please Stand Bi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corrin and Laslow have a run-in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story takes on an identity of its own here. I also dunk on Fates a lot. 
> 
> Word Count: 5,078 words.

There are two ogres in the woods. The Woods of the Forlorn.

They don't have names.

They aren't important.

They'll never be seen again.

They're on break, so to speak, lounging against a moss-ridden tree like it's nobody's business. One has the risky gall to smoke vapors from a fell hookah, the mouthpiece plugged into any of the ten holes on its mask. The other—desperate to get on a high just as intoxicating—inhales the foul, murky miasma secondhand.

Everything's a little bit hazy. Scratch that. Too hazy. Far, far too hazy.

It's a dismal, dreary stench, the kind of malignant odor that creeps into a pair of nostrils and incinerates the untrimmed hairs within them. The kind of smog that slurs speech and garbles it into pure disillusioned rambling.

Dark Mages reek of it. Faceless spawn from it, and thus—revel in it.

The monster retrieves the mouthpiece, twiddles it in its bulbous fingers, and blows a trio of rings into the air. Its companion nods with intrigue, stimulated by both its wordy wisdom and fumes.

"Mm," it hums in a jarringly intellectual tone, one far too humane for a beast. "That so? That's really interesting,"

"I mean, this game," the monster pauses to savor the next filthy exhale. " _ **this game,**_ I mean, all these complaints, you know."

"Oh yup, yeah, never hear the end of it."

" _They rewrote the cast, my kid's a loveless pariah, my wife won't wear lingerie, I can't rub her sweet spots, not that I would want to any way because all she does now is boast of her strength, and she sounds awful._ That stuff, malarkey innit. You hear it all the time, don't you?"

"All the time, all the time. Not like it matters though, sold lovely from what I hear."

"Best-selling debut the country has ever seen. Really drives the point home, doesn't it?"

"How'd ya figure?"

"Well let's say, for example,  _ **say this game**_ ," slurs the lurching beast. "Say they left it alone,"

"Oi, but they never leave things alone. Always gotta fiddle with it, should be expected by now, I mean, s'not okay, but it's not unprecedented. What are you going to do? Vote with your gold? But you already did that!"

"I know, I know, but stick with me," another pause to exhale, this time the vapor comes out in stars. "Say this game, they leave it alone, right? Give to say, a different group, a group of, oh I dunno, fifteen intelligent, agenda-less bilinguals, you know? And the old group dies in a fire,  _ **messy fire**_ , no survivors, everyone's dead and their wives have left them. New group comes in. Nothing wrong, no change, same as the original, straightforward job, everyone loves it, but let's be honest,  _ **what would that**_ _ **do?**_ I mean, let's face it, face facts, face the music,  _ **what would that do?**_ "

"Are you sure the fumes aren't getting to you?"

A low guttural roar emerges from beneath the monster's mask. "No no, I'm serious." it growls. "At the end, in the long run, long-term _,_ _ **what would that do?**_ What would it accomplish really? System's already blown open, they'd still steal a copy tampered or not. I mean, there's no longer any controversy, but you know, the game,  _ **this game,**_ it's still inherently flawed either way, like you know, off the top of my head, the crystal balls and the goo man."

"Oh yeah, yup, really gooey that man is, yup. Really stupid too!"

"The split paths, all the paid add-ons, special editions.."

"Cost me a fortune!"

"The magic letters from my dead mum!"

"S'not incest she says!"

"That mysterious dancer!"

"The cast is as blind as they are dumb, innit!"

"All the unnecessary deaths!"

"Forced drama up the arse is what it is! Rest in pieces, icy wench!"

"See?  _See?_ " it exclaims, chains rattling. "So many problems at the base of the game,  _ **this game,**_ who cares about the supporting beams, the foundation's the bigger issue, you know? Fix that, then we talk small apples _ **—**_ "

"Oi, hold on, we didn't bring up Valla!"

"Course we didn't.  _We don't want to turn into bubbles now, you know?_ "

" _ **Bahahaha!**_ "

" _ **Bahahahahahah—Oi! Holy shit!**_ "

Their unbridled heckling becomes intercepted by a wretched disturbance in the distance.

"W-Wha? What's going on now!?"

The smoldering monster tenses up at the sight, and immediately discards his smoking gun into the nearest bush.

"Don't look now, but i-it's the guy, the guy,  _the guy with the sword,_  million dollar man! I swear it! Coming right this way!"

"Gah!? That can't be! He ain't scheduled to come this way! Not right now! We're not even working!"

"Change of plans! Act natural, mulligan! There's a reason we've got improv on our résumés!"

"Oh, yeah, yup, yeah! Act natural! Role play!  _ **Get into character!**_ "

* * *

On his way to Windmire, the capital city of the kingdom of Nohr, the king of Valla passes through the forbidden Woods of the Forlorn without a care in the world. As his new boots trek through marsh muck and swamp slime alike, he whistles a jaunty little number, gloved hands held behind his back.

" _Garon is dead, Ia-go is dead,_ "

" _Hans is dead, Iza-na is dead,_ "

" _All of these peo-ple are pre-tty dead._ "

" _Could have saved 'em all if I didn't shit the bed,_ "

" _Scarlet is dead, Anan-kos is dead,_ "

" _My mom is dead, Sumer-agi is dead,_ "

" _I made the right choice so Lilith hasn't died!_ "

" _I saved Flora too but she's dead inside!"_

_"Elise is okay, Xander is okay,"_

_"Ryo-ma's okay, Taku-mi's okay,"_

_"Azu-ra's not a puddle so she's also okay,"_

_"They're all still here cause I went the right way,"_

_"I love them all, they love me too, and that's okay!"_

_"La di da di da tomo-rrow is uh.. Thursday!"_

As Corrin approaches them—bobbing to and fro, the monstrous blokes assume a thin-layered reversion to their primordial state, which is to say—they decay into brutal, mindless, bloodthirsty, enemy savages with an unquenchable lust for punching things and twitching erratically.

It's a shallow, paltry act, one that the king is either too busy, or  _too dumb_  to see through.

"Top of the morning to you, friends!" he salutes with a hearty wave, ignoring the fact that their responses consist mainly of unintelligible growls and bile-spewing snarls.

Any closer and his skull would be bashed in.

Fortunately, Corrin pays the two no further mind and ventures deeper into the forest, leaving them to idle ferociously for a few moments more until he's out of their earshot and completely obscured by the woodlands' darkness.

As soon as that happens, they near-instantly drop their fronts and resume their hardened realities as off-duty, one-note, accentuated caricatures living on a higher plane of existence.

"Blimey.." one of them says, rattling the bush for the hexing hookah. "I think we cut that one a bit too close.."

"Yeah, yup, yeah, too close," the other nods. "Now you gonna give me another puff, or no?"

And indeed, sharing another puff is their next course of action, and a brief silence fills the air as they indulge in its reeking hedonism.

"... Mm.. You know.. they call us  _Nosferatu_ over there?"

"Oi, that true?"

"Yup. But they can't do it over here, 'cause the name's taken, already used it as a rename of another.. spell.. thing, you know, so instead they.. I don't know, took a look at the mask.. and they said,  _ **they said**_ , 'wells they have no face, so call 'em that', and it stuck I guess, go figure."

"Yeah, yup, go figure."

* * *

_"La di da di da, dum da..."_

There's a flower shop somewhere in the Nohrian capital, tucked away in the dingy slums, where the self-proclaimed cool kids like to hang out and perpetuate varying levels of amateur quackery.

While one would sooner think of a ghost town than a capital just by surveying the town square, they need only take a few slithery twists and turns through the backwater alleys to reach the true heart of Windmire—a bustling shantytown of a metropolis at the forefront of an enterprise owned by the people, and managed by the people.

People of supremely dubious ethics, but people all the same.

The king ventures to the overcrowded squatter's paradise on claims of fervently urgent business. For good measure, he dons a mask of sorts to disguise his regal babyface from the peepers of the unsuspecting public (gods forbid a royal be caught miring in the slop of the underprivileged,  _not even the slop of his_ _ **own**_ _kingdom either_ ).

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned on these streets is that the bright and lively atmosphere is but an illusion, a mirage that plays an inviting backdrop to a scene that in reality, is far from welcoming.

It's every unwashed man for himself. Every block that isn't a black market is a red light district, with a line of frothy beggars in-between and a hint of danger lurking behind every corner.

Fortunately, the king is in no immediate need of handholding. With the instrumental of his merry melody on repeat in his head, he tracks down the flower shop, conveniently sandwiched between two brothels with names also associated to floristry.

Under any other circumstance, the king would have readily rushed inside to carry out his transaction and move on with his day, and given his recent agrarian high it's almost bizarre to think that he isn't back at the castle yet.

There exists a good reason for that.

A very petty, but all-the-same unnerving fear looms over the king as he stands just outside the door, a fear that holds him by the shoulders, tickles his ear with hot breath, licks his earlobe and huskily whispers a seedy limerick.

_I can safely say I'm not able to lay_

_A woman without initial pay._

_The cute ones I'll flirt_

_The mean ones I'll skirt_

_And the skirt ones I'll mean to survey._

Poetry, as far as he knows it, has never before sounded so  _colorful_.

So he hesitates, unable to bring himself to pull the handle, let alone touch it.

This isn't his first time here.

It's not his last, either.

' _... I really hope_ _ **that guy**_ _isn't there today.._ '

Heaving a heavy sigh, Corrin enters the boutique, his eyes glossing over a poster showboating the employee of the month, whose mug bears an uncanny resemblance to the gentleman on the  _Do Not Allow_ posters on either of the adjacent brothels.

* * *

He's there.

_Oh, he's there._

Flower shops tend to come with flower boys and flower girls, and  _Cassita's_ is no different (just because it lies in the depths of an underachieving ghetto doesn't mean that it's completely deprived of the amenities of the average florist).

Incidentally, Windmire's brothels are also teeming with  _flower girls_ , though to say they dabble in the same profession outside of playful, flora-based euphemisms would be pure misconstruction.

He's manning the counter, minding his own business, and doesn't even notice Corrin as he enters the establishment.

Corrin notices him though, and as soon as his eyes meet his twinkly figure, a hacking fit unexpectedly overwhelms him.

' _Gods, no..._ '

Of all the people.

Of  _all_ the people.

A person capable of unsettling the otherwise unconditionally harmonious king of Valla deserves a treasure trove of medals and the envy of his peers, and the fruity boy standing behind the counter is more than worthy of such a prize. His past is incredibly vague, and it would probably be more accurate to say that it doesn't exist at all. If there are records, documents, birth certificates—anything that can verify that he isn't a phantom philanderer or a flirting figment of the king's admittedly sugarcoated imagination, they aren't archived.

Luckily, the suspicious absence of proper identification doesn't prevent him from having a name. Unlike the nameless inbreeding hicks of no-name land,  _he actually matters._

Corrin wishes he did not.

That sounds awful, but it's true.

The coughing is ultimately what rats the king out. Alerted by it, the flower boy looks up from his reflection and without a second thought, begins to pitch a dab of rehashed woo.

"Oh my, I wasn't expecting customers at this early an hour, and such a beautiful.. er, cough too! Say, might I trouble you for a cup of tea after my shift's o—"

Laslow freezes.

" _...ver.._ "

He freezes because of a startling revelation.

"O-Oh.."

He freezes because he is talking to a man.

A masked man whose vague resemblance sits on the tip of his tongue but a man nonetheless.

His face also heats up. Beet red, one might say.

"It's uh.. It's  _you_ again."

Also, Laslow is the flower boy. That's kind of important.

' _Gods, no..._ '

Of all the customers.

Of  _all_ the customers.

Corrin tugs at his collar as he approaches him using only his peripheral vision, trying to look at anything but his  _smooth_  face.

_So smooth._

"R-Right, it's, it's me again... ahaha.."

' _This was going to happen sooner or later.. Just get it over with.. Get it done.. then you can go home.._ '

Little does either fruitcake know, they've actually crossed paths long before any of their awkward checkouts. All that stuff some months back about birthrights, conquests, silence and blood, revelations and whatnot—Laslow was there for a good majority of it, present as part of Lord Corrin's fate-defying, path-carving, neutral-ned army—mercenary division.

The elephant in the room being that he was benched almost immediately following his recruitment and never lived to see action on the frontlines, let alone a flimsy skirmish ( _thirteen base speed with only forty-five percent growth? More like La_ _ **slow**_ ).

"I was um.." Corrin pauses to rub the back of his neck. "I-I was here last week.."

Despite their earnest commitment to the same platoon, the would-be platonic bonds between the two never quite flourished. As the war drudged on, Corrin's ragtag squad did nothing but grow—grow as more and more overly-wacky one trick pony characters defected to his side. What began as a dumb prince, his clumsy maid, and his cousin-with-benefits became an army, an army far too grandiose for Lord Corrin to shower each individual member with equal parts love, attention, and most importantly—conscious memorization of their face and names.

_Which is to say they didn't exactly hit C-rank together._

"I know," Laslow nods, trying hard not to stare. "I was uh.. I was there."

"R-Right, right.. you were.."

So when the war ends, when Anankos' giant eyeball of scathing anger and agony gets pierced in one of its many corneas by the Omega Yato, everyone in the army goes their separate ways and suddenly it's like none of it ever happened. Corrin becomes king of a newly-formed Valla and Laslow supposedly vanishes to parts unknown according to word of mouth.

Mere gossip and hearsay can't possibly be true however, because he's _right there_ , unintentionally reddening the tips of the king's pointy ears.

In truth, he's actually  _not_  allowed to leave. Not even if he  _wanted to_. Shady dealings and a number of unpaid debts to society from his mercenary tenure have entangled him in the unrelenting reins of community service. Any attempts of say, cross-dimensional skedaddling back home to mama or Outrealms brouhaha is thoroughly punishable by Nohrian law.

In layman terms, the context of their new dynamic is a  _different_  kind of relationship. Very different.

And unpleasant.

Wholly unpleasant.

' _Please don't stare, please don't stare, please don't stare.._ '

A bead of sweat rolls down Laslow's cheek, his eyes frequently darting to and from the king's face (it's okay for  _him_  to steal a few glances, apparently).

"And uh, now.. y-you're back.."

A minute has yet to pass and already the flower boy finds himself running low on small talk.

' _Why did he have to come back..?_ '

Neither of them can really bring themselves to even explain it. There's no reason, no precedent for why they should be feeling so socially inept, so incapable of communicating—hell, doing much of  _anything_ when in each other's vicinity.

It could simply be the nature of chemistry, or in this case, the lack thereof.

The king feels sweat of his own rolling down his face and can't help but wonder if the inexplicable heat is genuine or a product of his mind playing tricks on him.

' _Come on.. Say something.. D-Don't just look.._ '

Laslow waits— _desperately waits_ —for a response, drumming his fingers on the counter, faintly whistling parts of a tune eerily similar to the one Corrin sang on his way here.

' _This is getting too real.._ '

The king's fixation on just about anything in the store that isn't Laslow's face becomes so absorbing that he doesn't even catch his cue to carry the discussion. His focus, at least for the next four seconds, is entirely consumed by a hoe—a gardening hoe, not an adjacent whorehouse hoe—leaning ever so casually on the wall.

' _If only the hoe were the clerk._ '

"Uh... p-pardon, sir..?"

Sadly, hoes in  _any_  sense of the word can only buy a man so much time. Laslow calls to the king with what little professionalism he has left and jerks him back to reality.

"H-Huh!?  _Wh-What?!_ —" the king snaps, slinging through a cycle of emotions before ending at meekness. "O-Oh, er, sorry.. I-I was—"

"I-It's fine!" Laslow squeaks, blush intensifying. "I-I er, well... oftentimes I, ah.. stare into the abyss.. and th-think absentmindedly as well..."

"I-Is that so..?"

_'What the heck is he talking about?'_

' _Gods, what the heck am_ _ **I**_ _talking about?_ '

Finding nowhere else for his hand to settle on but his burning cheek, Corrin picks at it—almost as if to give him something to do beyond enduring the sting of firsthand embarrassment—while scrambling to recall why he even set foot in the store in the first place.

"A-Ah, so uh, yes, um... I-I need... t-tr... wel..."

Alas, his recollection becomes sidetracked by his need to practice his best Sakura impression.

"Er, come again..?"

" _Tr...wel...owel...I-I er.. need..."_

"Excuse me? What are you—"

" _ **Trowel!**_ _ **Trowel!**_ _ **I need a trowel! That's all I want so just give me one so I can get out of here!**_ "

If Laslow had something to hide behind (well there's always the hoe), he'd certainly be using it right now.

"I-I mean, um, wh-what I meant to say—" Corrin cools down from the spicy outburst but the damage is done, all he can do is babble and hope for a sliver of reprieve. "I-I'd like... a trowel p-please.. i-if you will."

As if matters couldn't possibly get any more confusing, Corrin's seemingly benign request strikes a chord within Laslow, one that rings of deja vu. It works in that it lightens some of the tension,  _on his part at any rate._

"A trowel.. are you, ah.. sure about that?"

"P-Positive! I'm um, s-starting a community garden soon, s-so I'd have to have one, r-right? Ahaha..."

' _And this is the only florist in Nohr I know of.._ '

The king's laughter does little to chill the room, it's still as searing as the sun itself.

"I can understand that," Laslow pauses, hand reaching for the back of his head. "It's just.. you know."

"I-I don't, actually.."

"The last time you were here...  _ **you also bought a trowel.**_ "

It is Corrin's turn to freeze.

Except he freezes a little longer, eyes wide open, like a deer that's been spotted (or as the flower boy presumes,  _sussed)_ by an overly-optimistic hunter.

And his only defense, of course, is the first thing that immediately comes to his mind.

" _ **I-It broke!**_ "

It's a pretty glassy defense.

"It...  _broke_." Laslow faintly repeats.

"Th-That's right! I-It's uh, kind of a funny story—ah  _ **true story!**_ " Corrin asserts with a finger raised. "I-I was teaching myself how to um... ah, trowel things... a-and the handle.. th-the handle.. it.. it went kaput."

"It went kaput..?"

"I-It went kaput, yes."

"Ah-huh..."

It's almost as if the more he speaks the less he believes him.

In the king's defense, the trowel actually  _did_  break, but there isn't much he can do to properly convey that without coming off as a nervous wreck.

' _Gods, did.. did he break it on purpose just to come back here? Or wait.. what if it's not even broken at all?_ '

' _Is.. Is this man trying to.._ —'

Laslow's mind unfortunately runs wild with assumption, leading him to humor what he comes to believe is a man desperately trying to maintain a front.

"Alright then.. I-I believe we can work something out. How does a new trowel at.. er..  _half-off_ — _I guess_ —sound?"

For once Corrin relaxes, and some of the egg on his face disappears. "Th-That sounds great! I'll take it! That means I'd be paying, like..  _fifty-percent less than what I could have spent!_ "

"Uh, yeah.. That's right. I'm offering it to you because.. er..." Laslow pauses to swallow a hard gulp. "—you're...  _such a nice person...how couldn't I.._ "

' _Gods, I hope that didn't sound forced on his end.._ '

The flower boy makes a quick round trip to fetch a trowel that isn't afflicted with the dreaded  _kaput_ defect and upon returning, is dismayed to find that yes, his customer is still there.

The king—who takes precaution to keep his vast Vallite fortune  _accumulated-mostly-from-challenges_  under wraps—presents a measly pouch from his pocket, and from it a meager sum of gold (pocket change really), enough to cover the charges. For all it's worth at this point, the rest of the transaction goes just about as smoothly as it can possibly go, almost like a calm  _after_ the storm.

And then, out of nowhere, an unavoidable roadblock.

' _So.. with the gold covered, item bagged, all that leaves is the.. oh.._ '

' _The exchange..._ '

For the weak-minded, it's imperative to know that direct skin-to-skin contact isn't exactly the most uplifting pastime for either of the men in the shop. The two are barely comfortable holding a conversation, much less  _touching each other._  The distant memories of last time's incident still haunt Laslow to this day—or they  _would have_ , had he not willingly discharged it from his mind altogether.

 _'Gah... Come on Inigo, your father can raise the undead but you can't sell a trowel to some sweaty dastard what the hell's the matter with you?_ '

The king must also know that this leg is coming up because he's feeling antsy again. Not even the presence of gloves can dilute his anxiousness.

' _Deep breaths.. deep breaths.. you can do this.. you can do this..'_

They mutually decide—not with words but with some odd combination of luck and facial gestures—that the gold should be passed first, as it holds the lesser sentimental value.

The trials and tribulations of a simple business deal have never before been exaggerated to such lofty heights, if one didn't know any better they'd swear it had become a war all its own. Anna would be impressed.

One by one, the king slowly drops coin after coin into Laslow's sweaty, clammy palm. It's absolutely ridiculous and completely overboard, but both men operate on a scale of trivial insecurity that doesn't adhere to logic, so for them the less realism,  _the better._

* * *

"C-Come on Felicia, you can do this! Remember, y-you're  _Super Felicia_ now! A-And that means you can do anything when you put your mind to it! ...Jeez.. do all superheroes talk to themselves when they're alone? I hope I'm not the odd one out.."

' _Tch. "Odd one out" is an understatement._ '

Jakob glares with seething teeth as Felicia—self-proclaimed superhero and world-renowned super _ **zero**_ —recites a self-empowering pep talk for the purpose of tackling the one chore that has eluded her since the dawn of her politically indentured servitude— _casual lifting._

'... _She's going to drop every single one of those plates._ '

The butler keeps his distance from the clumsy maid for both his  _and her_ sake, taking refuge behind a conveniently-placed column. He leers at her from his hideaway, a front row seat to her downhill struggle with what ample servants would consider baby steps.

"Wo-Woah!  _Woah, woah, woah!_... Ahaha! That was a close one!"

' _Posture, posture, posture, posture girl! What stupid dastard told you having_ _ **shaky knees**_ _was good poise?! Because it sure as hell wasn't me!_ '

Normally he would never stoop so low as to spy on her—let alone give her the time of day beyond chastising her lousy work ethic—but duty is duty and Jakob is never one to deny a request from the king, even if said king's been rather off-beat as of late.

More so than usual.

To that end, Jakob glances down to his hands. One holds a dagger, sharp and pointy. The other holds a shuriken, also sharp and pointy,  _ **and on fire.**_ His eyes shift between both, indecisive of which one to use on such short notice.

He shrugs and takes the high road.

"Sl-Slowly, slowly, wu-uh-oh! Woah, woah,  _w_ — _ **waaahh!**_ "

Felicia hits the ground with a thunderous thud, her stack of plates shattering all around her in a shower of jagged china and shrapnel. The tiny pebble that pelted her lands some feet away, unassuming on paper, deadly in practice.

Her only explanation comes from the butler that abruptly calls out to her before taking off.

"Staff meeting in thirty!  _ **Don't be late!**_ "

* * *

A millennium and a half transpires before all of the gold is exchanged and accounted for— _and remarkably, this was the least of their problems._

The trowel comes next, and its transferal demands a level of man-on-man interaction far deeper than either of them are comfortable with. No amount of dillydallying in the world can delay the proceedings, so Laslow bites the bullet and takes the initiative.

He grips the handles of the paper bag, stock and stodgy, and holds it over the counter with a quivering lip and all the careful, cautious finesse he can muster.

' _Please.. please just take it.._ '

The king however, loses his drive to play vigilant.

A bug nips at his back, a bug that reminds him that time is of the essence, and getting back to the castle to make the meeting in time is of the utmost importance. After all, few things are more important right now than enriching the less fortunate about the untold wonders and awes of land cultivation.

His patience runs thin, and so the lord does as all lords do,  _and procs a skill to speed the process._

" _ **I make my own fate!**_ "

"Wh-Wha—?!  _ **Waaugh!**_ "

Laslow is given but a fleeting glimpse to catch his breath before the king catches it for him—literally. His hand, which uncontrollably bloats to draconian size, seizes the bag in an unstoppable rush of adrenaline and by extension, the flower boy attached to it.

" _ **G-Gods, what**_ _ **are**_ _ **you?!**_ "

" _ **Yeah!**_ _Rrrrgh rrawrggh rrhh!_   _ **That means '**_ _ **Unleash the Beast**_ _ **'!**_ "

Corrin holds the philanderer over his head with the raw prowess of his freaky dragon claw, ventilating every last vendetta towards their mixed signals and awkward encounters in the blink of an eye.

Laslow struggles under his gargantuan grasp, kicking wildly but unable to break free.

He does come to notice, however, a subtle  _tingling_  sensation dwelling within his chest and hips.

' _O-Oh.. Oh my.._ '

' _What.. What is this? Hah... hah.._ '

With escape seemingly futile, Laslow's fate grows bleaker and bleaker, and likely would have taken a turn for the worse had his amorous impulses not pounced on his newfound kinkiness.

' _I've.. I've never felt so..._ '

His face glows hot—and not out of shyness, his eyes fall glossy, and his breaths draw heavy as he reaches out for the king.

" _Haaah... hahh..._   _Are you.. haah.. coming onto me?_ "

It's like a spark.

A very divisive spark.

The absolute counterpoint to an adrenaline rush.

Laslow is dropped onto the floor and the king's hand retreats into dormancy along with his feral dragon nature. Blindsided by the flower boy's accusation, Corrin makes a break for it, grabbing his new trowel and gunning for the door.

But Laslow's danced to this tune before, and in a scene ripped step by step from fiction, captures the king's hand before he can escape.

"Wait!" he calls, words thematically laced with flowers, bubbles, and glitter amongst a pink backdrop. "Please!"

"My offer still stands," he professes with a breathy gasp "Have tea with me, that's all I ask, and my only regret was not realizing it sooner."

There is strangely, no haughtiness behind the flower boy's words, no flirtation, no wordplay, no stroke of flamboyant ego to be seen. His words, his mannerisms, and everything in-between are genuine, the kind of once-in-a-lifetime sincerity that could only come— _from a man of passion._

Unfortunately Corrin isn't quite feeling the connection, and slips his hand out of his.

"I-I er, uh, n-no,  _ **no**_ —I-I mean, the fact is—I-I didn't mean to grab y-you like— _ **I don't go that way!**_ —a-at least I think I don't, I mean ah,  _st-still no!_ "

"N-No..? Bu-But—Please!" he pleads, his voice cracking. "Won't you think again? Life is so short to dwell on! Seize it by the horns or in your case, the throat—!"

"N-No, n-not interested! N-Not, um today—I mean, n-no!  _Not ever!_ B-But not because you're a—well I-I , th-the thing exactly—I-I'm married— _with kids!_ S-So no way, bu-but I mean.. _if I wasn't.._ "

Corrin finds himself giving Laslow a once-over.

"Agh, what am I saying?!  _I'm way out of your league!_  I-I've gotta go! S-See you around maybe  _hopefully never_!"

The door shuts, and the flower boy is left wide-eyed with a heart that's never felt more kaput.

Fortunately it mends itself in time for him to admire the king's departing backside from the window.

An airy sigh escapes him. "Be still, my beating heart..."

Of course, the instant Corrin merges into the crowds, Laslow reaches for the nearest wall and starts punching it.

"Stupid _, stupid,_ _ **stupid!**_ "

* * *

When Corrin returns to the Nohrian border, face cooled by the capital's eponymous drafts, he is briefly cross-examined by a guard for mandatory security purposes.

"Did you enjoy your stay in Nohr, friend?" he asks with a sincere smile, the sweetest one for miles.

And although the king would have been more than thrilled to chat the day away with him, he decides in that moment, that he is in no mood.

"No,  _ **no I did not.**_ "

Taking his things, the king crosses the border in a grumpy huff, leaving Benny to wonder what could have happened to sour the masked man who seemed so benevolent on his way in.

"...Oh. I suppose you won't be taking the visitor satisfaction survey then.."

"...I'm only a few referral points away from that nice teddy bear.."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The limerick is entirely original, while Corrin's song is sung to the tune of "Three Blind Mice".


	4. Another Doleful Detour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jakob gathers the D-listers and Laslow is trapped in a time loop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 3,669 words.

Monotonous.

Absolutely monotonous.

Every day is the same.

Nothing is new.

Nothing is different.

Nothing ever changes.

Every wistful event of the day is but a cog of a habitual cycle meant to maintain a stale status quo.

If a duller tedium exists, he's yet to encounter it.

Laslow awakes in his bed, no different than he was when he stepped into it the night before. A part of him refuses to even get up, the other fraction is numb, it doesn't care what the rest of his body does so long as it doesn't exert too much energy. Minutes pass without action, and he ultimately has to force himself to get out of bed, force himself with a level of gravitas that would be more at home heavy lifting than being expended on such a menial task.

He doesn't even get halfway across the room before his muscles begin to cramp, aching with a vengeance. Groaning in a near-silent agony, he stretches every muscle and pops every bone in his body before completing his taxing trip to the mirror.

He stares in the glass with bloodshot eyes and dark rings adorning them, adjusting his collar so that it reveals just the right amount of chest ( _right amount for him, as no women cast even cursory glances at him these days_ ). Not too much, not too little. Just enough to get through the day.

He stands in place afterward, persisting with nothing but his own static thoughts to keep him company ( _not exactly sunshine and smiles_ ).

' _W_ _onder if I should sigh.._ '

He pulls it once or twice, every so often, unevenly spread here and there, trying to breathe fresh air into a rotten corpse of a routine with whatever minute deviations he can drum up.

' _Would she even notice?_ '

He's tried it eighteen or nineteen times as far as he can remember, and she's raised concern over none of them.

Laslow counts down the seconds to her debut—the same time as always—and times his own moves to intertwine with hers.

It sounds like a dance—a lovely dance, and perhaps long ago it might have been the loveliest there ever was, but lately it's more of a process.

A  _monotonous_  process.

He exhales and that's her cue to gallop across the room in a matter of seven sweet and sugary skips.

" ** _Peri knows you'll never guess what's for breakfast!_** "

She leaves him with that quip, bloodied cleaver in hand, and his sigh peters out into the mirror before him.

' _Nothing._ '

' _Like always._ '

Another minute of blank reflection into the foggy glass, and Laslow shuffles down the stairs—a kaput shell of a man who's all but lost his trademark smile.

* * *

"Staff meeting in fifteen minutes. Come presentable.  ** _Don't be late._** "

A faint blush dusts Flora's cool cheeks ( _he has such lovely enunciation_ ), but Jakob is already out the door before he can notice.

Rallying troops is something easier  **done** than  **said** _,_  and a huge facet contributing to that absence of difficulty stems from the fact that Valla's new base of operations ( _if it even deserves to be referred to as such_ ) has more-or-less, ten simple-minded worker drones operating it at all times. A skeleton crew in every sense of the word.

The majority of the king's ragtag, mixed-kingdom army had mutually disbanded upon Anankos' anti-climactic demise, most seeking to return to their own shallow lives—now improved immensely without an invisible madman manipulating their every whim and desire. The king allows it with nary a qualm or concern because it's the least he can do for all the troubles and scars they've endured along the way ( _aside from a monetary compensation and a gift basket commemorating their valiant services on the front lines and unrivaled courage in facing the Silent Dragon, but the army never sees a cent_ ).

What remains at the end of all the inevitable valedictions and farewells is little more than the exact same retainers and servants he started out with ( _and some stinky farmer girl with nowhere else to go, go figure_ ). Not necessarily the worst of outcomes all things considered, but the king admits behind closed doors that it rather stings to know that few people genuinely wish to aid him in rebuilding a tattered kingdom anew, people that aren't already doing so out of regal or chummy obligation.

But the notion isn't totally unreasonable in hindsight. The process of restructuring is long and grueling, and the dismal politics that come with it are nothing short of exhausting, nerve-racking really—a textbook definition of a bad package deal. Everyone is far too smart to willingly throw themselves through such fool's labor, and would much rather trudge through their own stew of bottomless affairs just waiting for them back home.

"Oh well, whatever _._ " Jakob scoffs as he makes his way down the hall. "Less messenger work for me. To hell with anyone that disagrees. ' _Many hands make light work!_ ',  **pah!** How utterly absurd."

The hall is empty—almost disconcertingly so, with only loud footsteps and a distant breeze accompanying the two-faced lackey.

"Hmph.. one more to go." the servant muses to himself, a whisper that's amplified by the emptiness around him.

" _Tch._  Which one of these rooms does that dusty old cock frequent these days?"

* * *

 _"_ It's a cheese sandwich!... _with the crusts cut off.. **and eggs!**_ _"_

Laslow spares a moment to stare into the goopy, unappealing yolk that stares back at him, exchanging silent grievances. This is hardly their first encounter, and from the looks of it, it's far from the last.

Peri is not for one subtlety, or variety, or much of anything that doesn't concern the intricate ins-and-outs of unadulterated homicide and bloodbaths. There was once a time when such lunacy would frighten the philanderer, make him blush, regress into that shy and submissive cake boy who couldn't bear to be gawked.

Now it's like, who cares.

_It's her gimmick. **Her thing.**_

_**It can't be helped.** _

He doesn't actually notice her at first, but Soleil is present too—the sole product of their union, with little to show for it beyond being an offensively-volatile mirror image of her father with a fraction of her mother's sense of morality (the former of which Laslow concedes to being a direct result of imprinting while in the magic maybe-baby time chamber).

Incidentally, mid-war 'comrade coitus' ( _or ' **sex** ' as all the hip kids call it_) is banned from the army following his daughter's recruitment, a mutual decision encouraged by both a public petition on its soulless lack of humanity toward the spawn bred within it ( _with Soleil as the propaganda's prime example of a 'potentially pure youth warped by impressionable alternate dimensions and a lack of parental supervision'_ )—and a couple of untraced anonymous complaints.

Ironically, Laslow not only signs the petition but also pens nearly every anonymous letter, and their barefooted leader ultimately approves of the proposition if only due to his own contrived reasoning.

' _It's stupid and hits too close to home, so uh, just don't have sex. Jerk to yourself and use your imagination, I suppose.. Psst, Jakob, what exactly **is** sex, again?_'.

' _It's that thing you say you partake in the time._ '

' _Ah._ '

Unsurprisingly, most of the men in the army are vehemently against the ban, not due to their nonexistent aspirations of becoming parents at such a young age, but due to their horny, poonhound desires of busting hard double nuts in their respective wives' big fat butts ( _the sole exception being resident judicious buffoon—Arthur,_   _who suffers from chronic erectile dysfunction ban or no ban_ ).

On an entirely unrelated note, ear sex experiences a healthy rise in popularity following the embargo.

At any rate, Soleil is the pinnacle of talking the talk but never walking the walk, with a novelty as twice as tired and half-baked as her father's once was, and Laslow often finds himself at a loss as to whether love her regardless of such things or disown her outright as an utter misstep in the game of life ( _an addendum to a chain of missteps_ ).

There is, in short,  **literally no reason for her existence**. It's a cold, unavoidable truth, one that Laslow doesn't want to accept, much less admit to her face.

In the end, he settles for a vague, neutral sort-of acceptance, because that never hurts anybody and his wife  **and** father would have his head on a pike if he did anything that would jeopardize the sanctity of his family. Judging by the stagnancy of their relationship following the war, Soleil has no issue with it.

"I had this dream last night," his daughter suddenly announces with a straight face, unprompted, like it's the most important thing she has to talk about and it needs to be discussed posthaste. "Everyone was dead. Dead bodies all over the place. It was just me. Me and this group of faceless ogres. They told me we had to 'sex like taguels' in order to repopulate the world, but I didn't want to."

"I wasn't sure if they were girls or not, see.." she laments with regret—never mind the fact that she isn't entirely opposed to the idea had they suited her taste.

Impervious to her questionable fantasies at this stage, Laslow pokes at his eggs, but pokes a little too hard. What starts as a jab becomes a stab _ **,**_  and the yolk spills out, seeping into the crustless sandwich.

For a moment—just a moment—the yolk flickers, and he sees his wife in its sloppy, gloppy reflection.

The image disappears as quick as it comes, leaving the philanderer staring at his yellowed likeness once more.

' _What.. Wh-What was that..?'_

For a moment death stares back at him.

' _Am I.. losing it?_ '

He wonders how far-off things have gotten for him to be even thinking such things, trick of the mind or otherwise. Peri is crazy, but cute, she still has her charms—her bloody,  **bloody** charms—and he could never in a million years bring himself to do such a thing to her in spite of current events.

Love is kind of odd in that way.

"I'm.. ah.. heading to work now."

"Okey dokey, be safe!  ** _Peri loves you!_** "

"Laslow lov—er, uh, I mean— _I-I love you too._ "

A daunting shiver haunts over the philanderer as he exits the dining room and makes way to repay his copious debts to society.

After that illusion, the last thing he wants for her is to be near him.

* * *

Lilith is something of a wild card through and through. Even before her permanent transformation, Jakob could never make heads or tails of his feelings toward her. It's as if she stands on a middleground, the center of a spectrum scaling the nuisances of the world with Felicia on one infuriatingly klutzy extreme, and Flora on the other, tolerable if not forgettable and just a little bit self-deprecating.

The thing about Lilith is that she is on neither side, she's just sort-of.. there.  **Existent.**  No offense is to be had if she happens to be in the room, so she's already a step above Felicia in that regard, but there's no substance to work with either. What little interaction the butler has with her is steeped in stolid remarks—the bare minimum, never more than necessary, never unrelated to work, with only a mutual degree of respect and acknowledgment.

They don't despise each other, at least.

_'And now she's a dragon.'_

' _Okay, whatever_.'

An  **Astral** Dragon, one of the last of her kind supposedly. A bombshell like that—to discover that the flowery servant girl so devotedly attached to the king's hip is in actuality, a being of a higher plane from beyond the stars—would make others drop dead from pure shock alone. To Jakob however, it's just one of many unfortunate events in a chain of ridiculous revelations, twists, and turns. Each one less plausible than the one before it, with Lilith's 'origins' paling to them all.

' _Now that I think about it... Not much has changed since that day, has it? Introduce us to a safe haven in an alternate dimension and retreat into a shrine, she's about as useful now as she was then._ '

_'Except now she doesn't do housework. Just eat.'_

_'Eat, eat, and eat.'_

_'_ _And excrete solid gold.'_

_'And milord encourages it.'_

_'And we have to pick up after her.'_

_'And fulfill all of her former duties.'_

' _. . ._   _Maybe_ _that hand-to-work ratio holds som_ _e truths to it after all..'_

The devoted dragon is among the first of willing cronies that the butler drops in on, and the only one he has to seek out twice, the second instance on account of losing his sense of direction, every hall looks the same and only she cares enough to memorize the way through the new castle's labyrinth.

Jakob scrunches his nose and takes a sharp left, approaching a door at the far end of the corridor.

' _Lord Corrin_ _sincerely needs to consider renovating this place if he intends to rule from it. Gods, I'm at wit's end here!'_

_'Perhaps I'll be able to talk him into making it a priority once this whole gardening nonsense is done with..'_

Jakob halts before the door, but a pertinent thought pelts him before he can grip the handle.

"Hm, gardening.." he says to himself. "Is this really what our kingdom needs to prosper? Could milord be onto something?"

"..Or is he just  ** _on_** _something_ _?_ "

* * *

The foundation of a good business thrives on the pillars of good location, good productivity, and good word of mouth. A damning truth—Cassita's falls short of all three and survives only by miracles and low-key tax evasion ( _it's an honest business aside from that though, **honest** )_.

The flower shop is empty more often than not, what few people that come in tend to mistake the establishment for either of the frothy brothels sandwiching it, and none of them stay long upon being corrected ( _the sickos_ ).

What's left is a handful of dedicated floral enthusiasts—a pathetically niche demographic for Nohr—who drop in day by day. They're never punctual, never slaves to a schedule, they could camp out hours before opening or arrive minutes after closing. Their timing ( _or lack thereof_ ) leaves staffers with zero room for leisure, lest they miss out on one of their only two sales of the day.

Life behind the counter is, without question, just as  **monotonous** as it is back home.

But it's not all bad, it's not always a drab, dreadful endurance round. Peace and quiet provokes thought, thoughts can go a long way, and the flower boy has much to think about. Friends, family—especially family, would his mother even  _want_ to see him again if it had to be in  _this_  mood?—and pretty faces of all kinds flourish in his mind as he mulls back to a bygone era stretching across time and space. Sweeter days, he considers them.

The hour passes without any customers.

Seven more and he can go back home.

* * *

"Hey,  **rise and shine, old man!**  Staff meeting in  **ten** minutes! Lord Corrin's orde—!"

Jakob opens the door with the kind of rousing jeer only he can deliver, expecting to exchange a few sharp-tongued jabs with the inveterate fogey he so furtively takes orders from.

Instead, what greets him on the other side is a wave of pitch black darkness spilling out into the hall. The butler's jest runs short, as do his movements, but he overcomes the lapse long enough to take a hesitant step inside.

" _Tsk._ Don't tell me you've died already _,_  old man." he sneers, slowly adapting to the unwelcoming scenery. "I thought for sure you still had a few years left in you,"

When no immediate response comes his way, he keeps going, topping gibe after gibe. "Or maybe you're merely slowing down in your old age. No longer able to wake before the sun rises and police everyone around, huh? Is that it?"

Again, his pestering goes unheeded, but it doesn't deter him in the slightest.

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen much of you since we relocated. Have you been hauled up in here this entire time? Whatever for? Counting the days until your aching back finally gives up on you? That doesn't sound like the codger I know—"

" _...nrrn..._ "

At last, a faint groan badgers at him from across the room. The butler tracks it down to the source, whereupon he stumbles across the knight of the hour, solemnly bedridden.

"Ah _,_ there you are, old man." says Jakob, impudent as ever. "I've been calling you. Did you not hear me? Or are your ears failing you as well?"

Gunter winces, not from his remarks but from his incessant noisiness, and slowly turns to glower at him.

"I see winning a war hasn't dulled your defiance."

"Why would it?" the butler retorts. "I'm not like you, old man, lying around in the dark as if there's nothing left to do. The world doesn't stop revolving because a dragon aiming to conquer it gets sent back to the festering hell it crawled out of. Rest doesn't come so quickly. Bringing about real change is a far more gradual process, so forgive me if my mood hasn't so easily settled from what it was a few weeks ago."

" _Hrmph.._ " the elderly knight grunts. "I feel as if this is something  **I** should be lecturing  **you** about.. I don't suppose I'm rubbing off on you after all, am I, urchin?"

A cold chill runs up Jakob's spine. "Wh-What!?" he stutters. "Preposterous! I just said we were nothing alike! How deaf can you possibly be?!"

"Not at all if it's your tone we're assessing."

"Tch **!**  Why do I even bother?!" the butler huffs. "... _worthless trash..."_

" _'_ Worthless trash _'_  is redundant. Something considered garbage already possesses a lack of value. You're only running your mouth, urchin."

Jakob twitches his eye twice, moments before venting out his ire at the nearest wall.

When he returns, his knuckles are beet red and he's drawing heavy breaths.

"Hrm. Did you need something?" asks Gunter, calling no attention to the tantrum. "I very much doubt that you're here on your own accord."

Suppressing his innermost yearnings to sock the codger in his wrinkled face, Jakob folds his hands behind his back and answers him through the slits of his teeth. " _Ergh.._  Lord Corrin is requesting an impromptu meeting to discuss current and future affairs, or so I've been told."

Any desire to take his request into consideration is sent to the backburner upon hearing his liege's name.

"Is that so?  _Hrm..._ "

"Please be sure to send him my regards, then."

Jakob flips out accordingly, and this time it's justified. " _W-Wh— **What?**_ You're not attending?! What for!? What could you possibly have on your plate that's more concerning than Lord Corrin, old man?!"

The elderly knight is unresponsive, feigning silence once more, and all it takes is reading the expression on his sullen face to understand why.

"By the gods.." Jakob curses, lowering his voice for once. "This isn't still about that whole traitor ordeal is it? It is, isn't it? I swear, you've nothing else going on in your fossilized life to be so bent out of shape about. That has to be it."

Though Gunter doesn't directly confirm his suspicions, the twinge in his face when he brings the matter up is all he needs.

"I see I've struck a nerve. Or a dusty old vein. It's hard to tell the difference." says Jakob with an absent shake of the head. "I don't understand what it is you're so hung up about. Lord Corrin already forgave you, and he did so as soon as you came back to us. You'll gain nothing from making a show out of it."

Wise-ish words from such a bitter butler— _a rarity in hindsight_ —though if they have any impact on his senior, he doesn't show it. Jakob's dry amusement sours to a blunt apathy, and he soon finds himself turning on his heel, no longer interested in negotiating with a brick wall.

"When you're ready to stop pining for attention, you can find us in the courtyard."

He leaves, and Gunter just lies there.

* * *

Licensed psychiatrist and resident drama distiller Doctor Inigo, Ph. D ( _shorthand for Ph.ilanDerer_ ) skims his trusted logbook for the latest dosage of intel on his most recent patient. Unfortunately, his resources yield no results, so he instead decides to consult the source directly.

"You've been coming here for quite a while now," he notes, assuming a gentle 'I'm here to listen' tone. "But I'm beginning to suspect that we haven't made any significant process."

On the opposite side of the room lies Laslow, staring at the ceiling and pretending not to listen. The doctor continues in spite of this.

"You know, I would never force any of my patients to tell me anything unless they feel one-hundred percent comfortable, but I feel as if we've made enough of a connection over the past few weeks for you to be, well.." he pauses, searching for the right words. "..  _a little more_  open, so to speak."

Laslow folds his hands and turns his head slightly to gawk at the handsome, refined, well-cultured enigma sitting across from him.

"So, with that in mind.." says the doctor as he reaches for his quill, logbook sitting in his lap with a fresh page readied.

"Would you mind telling me what's been bothering you,  ** _Laslow?_** "

The way the doctor says his name, the way it almost slithers out of his mouth, stressing each syllable for all its worth, one would think it's intentional.

Both of them know they can't squander yet another session on complete silence, help isn't cheap after all. Sighing for a nineteenth or twentieth time, Laslow confronts the the machination in his head with a false sense of valor.

"Well.. I suppose you could say.. it all started when I was born."


End file.
